Outdoor Sports Expo coming; Starts Friday at county fairgrounds

Saturday

May 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM

If you like the outdoors, then the Cheboygan Fairgrounds is the place to be this coming Friday-Sunday.

By Richard Croftonrichard@cheboygantribune

If you like the outdoors, then the Cheboygan Fairgrounds is the place to be this coming Friday-Sunday.The Outdoor Sports Exposition will kick off from noon-8 p.m. on Friday and will include 115 vendors — both indoors and outdoors.“We will have various seminars,” said Fabian LaVigne, one of the organizers. “We will have things like how to throw a boomerang, outdoor cooking, authors, and hunting and fishing.”There also will be plenty of other activities including shooting and hunting dog exhibitions, fishing demonstrations, a turkey hunting contest, boats, kayaks, ATVs, high tech gear, a trout pond and plenty of food.There are several groups involved in making the expo a reality. The groups include the Kiwanis, Rotary, Vietnam Veterans of America and the local chapter of the NRA. The show is being put on in partnership with Woods-N-Water News.“This event came about after I talked with a veteran,” LaVigne said. “We decided if we could put our resources together, we could come up with one big event instead of many smaller events.”He said after the concept was reached, a meeting was called with the organizations that were interested and the expo idea was born.“Organizations here don’t have a lot of active members,” he said. “This was a way to pull something like this off.”The funds raised by the event will go toward youth activities in the area.The main event of the expo will be the world’s greatest shotgun shooting showman Patrick Flanigan. It will cost an additional $10 to see Flanigan on Sunday.Mike Avery will be another attraction. Avery is a TV-radio personality who does outdoors shows and Bay Blue Kennel’s Tera Lanczak also will be present. She is a famous trainer of retrievers.The expo will include seven buildings at the fairgrounds along with 22 outdoor vendors.“We hope this is exciting for everyone,” LaVigne said. “We have been working on this for two years. Mark Kadrovach got us going in the right direction.”He said hotels and restaurants have been supportive as well offering discount to vendors who will be coming into the area. Vendors are coming from downstate as well as Kentucky and Canada.The cost to get into the expo is $5 per day and children under 12 get in free. The hours will be Friday noon-8 p.m.; Saturday from 9 a.m.-8 p.m.; and on Sunday from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tickets are available in advance at the Cheboygan Area Chamber of Commerce office and more information can be obtained by calling 231-268-0044 or by visiting www.michiganoutdoorsexpo.com.“This is the first time something like this has been in Cheboygan,” LaVigne said. “We hope to make this an annual event.”